How ALTA Should Have Ended
by Rachelea
Summary: ATLA scene rewrites. Some humorous, some not.
1. Seriously though

"Aang!"

Aang barely registered his name as another of Zuko's blasts sent him stumbling backward. There was no doubt the prince was improving-though where he'd found a safe place to practice fire-bending in Ba-Sing-Se, the avatar couldn't imagine. The double whip thing was new. And so, more importantly, were Aang's conflicted feelings.

Was Iroh right? Should they be giving the hot-headed teenager another chance?

And how did you do that when his flames were directed at your own head?

The moral dilemma was solved for him when a wall of water slammed into the fire prince, knocking him out cold.

"Katara!" Aang cried. "Nice one! But Azula-"

"Dead," panted Katara, raising a hand to form a shell of ice around Zuko's prone figure.

 _"Dead?"_ A moment before the cavern had been lit with enough blasts for a firework show, red and blue glinting off the crystals and seething water. And now, all at once, it was quiet.

Aang spotted another sprawled figure in earth-green robes, jet-black hair spilling across the stone. He leapt upward, raising his staff. "It's a trick!"

"It's not, Aang."

Katara was right. The lips were turning blue against the pale face. Aang stumbled back, horrified in spite of himself.

"Katara, how-"

"I decided to stop playing around," said Katara coldly. "Sokka was right, for once. I know it doesn't mesh well with your air nomad sensibilities, Aang, but we need to go on the offensive."

"So you just-"

"She was a match for me, Aang," said Katara softly, striding over. Despite her confidence, she too stooped over the corpse, brushed her fingers briefly against the pale jawbone. Dead. "Azula was more than a match for me, but fire isn't a match for water. Let's go."

"What about Zuko?"

"What about him?" she asked coldly. "I don't want to kill him, and still less do I want to embroil myself in that mess of angst. Let his uncle deal with it. He's not worthy of us...of me," she added under her breath. Aang found himself suddenly agreeing wholeheartedly.

It wasn't until the four of them, plus the Earth King, had settled on Appa's wide back again that Aang understood the strength of his own existential ties. The ones of which the guru had so despaired. He had understood from a very early time that something lay beneath Katara's caring exterior. It was what made her so steady, what drew the flighty airbender to her so completely. From the start, he had understood that he needed Katara's gravity. But now Aang realized that the core he had mistaken for ice was in fact steel; an alloy so impenetrable that not even Toff could bend it.

The gang's only question was the one that Aang had not even thought to ask.

"How?" Katara repeated. "Not with a tsunami or hail of ice shards. That was Sokka inspiration again, I suppose." A pleased smile was edging across her brother's face when she shoved him. "Not _directly,_ though. Just something I read in the desert library, a charred scrap I picked up from the ground. _'Power in firebending comes from the breath.'_ That was all it said. I remembered it because...well, I suppose because all master benders draw inspiration from the other three elements."

" _Power in firebending comes from the breath,"_ Toff repeated.

Sokka couldn't contain himself. "So? what did that teach you?"

Katara smiled coldly, a serpent's smile she seemed to have stripped off the princess' corpse when she left.

"It taught me that a firebender without breath is no enemy at all. I filled her lungs with water...and then I held it there."

The other three shuddered involuntarily in the gathering gloom. A shiver even ran across Mo-mo's back.

"And when we left," Katara continued, "just to be sure-I froze the fluid. The queen of hell back there drowned on dry land. And there will be no resuscitation."

Toph was the only one to break the silence, as the stars broke through the darkness above.

"I like it." Then, defensively, "It's subtle. Like an earthbender."

Katara laughed. "Not just _any_ earthbender."

"Nope. Just me. And Sokka's jokes."

Sokka cracked a smile at that one.

Katara climbed over to Appa's head, where Aang was staring towards the fading horizon. "Aang? Are you all right?"

The boy couldn't hold it in any longer. "What _are_ you?"

Katara recoiled. "Is there a problem?"

"I don't KNOW!" Aang cried. "Is killing really the only answer? Is that...the best you could do?"

"We're fighting a war! How do you expect to win it?!"

 _"Not like this!"_

 _"This!_ This is how waterbenders do it!" she cried.

"Kill or die? Drown the enemy."

By the time Katara had quelled her rage, the mists around them were icy crystals in the air.

"My mother died," she said quietly. "I killed. You're still alive, so...welcome to the tribe, Aang."

Aang turned away. "Next stop, Fire Palace?" he asked bitterly.

Katara's voice was quiet. "I don't see why not."

She gazed at the horizon. The last of sunset's flames had burned away.

The moon was rising.


	2. This should have happened like 5 times

**A/N: This is how I meant to write that last chapter.**

"Katara!" gasped Aang, blocking another fiery blow from Zuko. "Where's Azula?"

Katara flung a chunk of ice at Zuko's head, and the fire prince dropped. "Dead," she said casually.

 _"What?_ What did you do?"

"I freaking drowned her, Aang. I'm a waterbender, remember?"

"Oh," said Aang. "Right."


	3. Let's be honest though

The burn was bad. It was easy to see, and easier to smell; the scent of seared flesh practically assaulted the nostrils. A revoluting cross between the battlefield and a Sunday dinner.

Only Zuko was accustomed to the reek of destruction. While the others reeled, he crouched over his uncle like a protective tigersnake. The old man's face was white and drawn, the flesh of his shoulder raw and red, charred. From ten paces, it was impossible to see whether he breathed.

Katara stepped forward, and Zuko snarled.

"Zuko," she said, low and firm. "I can help him."

"Get away!"

The howl was pure anguish, but Katara took another step. She could read people. That was her gift, her mother had always said, long before her waterbending became apparent. _You see through people, Katara. If you can read them, you can help them._ Katara looked into the face she loathed, and saw a prince who had never learned to trust anyone. One who saw only enemies all around.

Zuko raised a murderous hand to ward her off, and Katara barely prevented herself from reaching for the water at her side. Not this time.

"Zuko, you're not the only one who's frightened," she said desperately. "We're all lowkey bros with your uncle."


End file.
